Plot outline
Watanabe is a Japanese teenager from the late sixties. His life passes an inflection point when his best friend commits suicide. When he moves to Tokyo to remake his life and study at the university, he casually meets his best friend’s ex-girlfriend.

Comment without spoilers
This book simply centers around the life of Watanabe, his daily routines and the way he interacts with his environment and the people in it, as well as his internal thoughts and emotions.

There are few main characters in the novel, and all of them are characterized in a way that is at the same time very simple and quite deep, making the reader to be able to feel the thoughts and motivations as if they were their own.

The background of the story is, as the whole book, quite subtle and, simultaneously, ver profound, in a way so strong that if you close your eyes you could find yourself walking in Tokyo in 1969.

The edition is like what we are accustomed to with the Spanish editions, that is, a decent book, with white pages, big letters and a very clear printing. Nothing exceptional, but good.

The translation from Japanese to Spanish made by Lourdes Porta seems quite good to me, very solid… I have no idea of Japanese, so it’s harder for me to find possible error translations or double meanings lost, but the impression I have of this work is good.

This has been a hard post for me to write, both for the available time I have and also because I’m mostly unable to express what this book made me feel. But what is certain is that this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I love everything in it, from the characters to the plot, the way it’s written and nearly every detail present in it. Clearly a must read… I wish I could write like that.